Unconditional
by The Dark Waltz
Summary: This is not a story of Light defeating the Dark, or good vs evil. This is the story about a child born never knowing love and another who was born from an unconditional love. This is their story. A Tom Riddle love story
1. 1 When Found

The matron wouldn't have noticed the woman if it weren't for a distinct cry of a young babe. It was piercing and clear. She knew this sound like the back of her hand and immediately drew towards it.

The scene of a woman barely clinging to life was something she sadly had seen before, a child was silent within her arms. For a moment, it seemed as if the babe was already gone but as another wail pierced the air the silent child blinked. The woman's eyes briefly made contact to the matron's before they rolled into the back of her head and her arms went limp, the child rolled from her arms behind a rubbage bin. As the matron scrambled to reach the babe she found another hidden away, swaddled in starlight. The babe's eyes were a-light with weariness but just as piercing as her cry had been.

\--

The orphanage did not sit on a hill, as most do in storybooks, instead it sat at the end of a galley of buildings, its odd tower rising into the sky.

The matron had overseen the children within the house for many years. She had seen many children pass away before their lives had barely begun.

When she had first brought the two new babes into the nursery, a small rectangular room with only a few prams, she suspected that the boy would slip away quickly. He refused to eat, instead he stared blankly at her his eyes never keeping from her while she took care of him and the other child. He watched her every move, eyes slanted and as fierce as a serpent. She had never found a babe quite as unnerving till she had brought him to the home.

The other child was the opposite of the other quieter infant, seemingly full of life, eyes always sparkling with what could have been mistaken as mischief if it weren't for how young she was.

The oddest thing about the two was that they were never apart.

She had assumed at first that they were brother and sister, but their differences were uncanny. The boy child looked vaguely of the woman in the alley with his dark features but the girl child was light incarnate.

Hair like the twinkling stars in the night sky and mismatched eyes, one golden and the other crystal blue.

The matron would leave the room with the two in separate prams and when she came back, only moments later, she would find the girl in the same pram as the boy.

\--

It was one such evening when the matron re-read the note found within the thin swaddle the boy child was in. It was simple straight to the point, written in a shaky but elegant script.

_His name is Tom Riddle after his father._

_Please keep him safe._

There was no note for the other child. The matron caressed the fine fabric the girl had been wrapped in. It was odd. It was so much richer of fabric, one she had never seen before, softer than silk and more durable than any linen. Along the border of the pale blue, still glittering, blanket there was a name glistening in silver lettering: **_Nova_**.

\--

The two did not speak often, as they grew into toddlers, but when they did it was usually in low hisses that frightened the other children. When they weren't whispering softly to each other, they stared into each other's eyes as if communicating through them.

As they grew, the wonder of the two faded and soon the matron found herself with an emotion she had never had before when it came to her young charges: fear.


	2. 2 Her Eyes

His first memory was of a sky darkened by large black clouds coming into his peripherals.

The second was of a small hand grasped within his equally small one.

He never felt alone.

She was always there. A presence that seemed to fill him up and as he grew, a person that held his same spirit. She spoke his same language. They played with the snakes that crept into their prams where they grew from babes.

Her eyes twinkled as his dull ones gazed at her not knowing that her twinkle was reflected within his own.

At a young age he knew they were feared by those who gave them sustenance.

The screams and the gasps that came when they were found together once more when they had been separated, or when they both slept with serpents wrapped around them, was a familiar memory.

Soon not many checked on them, for they never cried, they only came to give them food and change them.

He was indignant that he had to be taken care of and as soon as he was able to feel stronger feelings, than just need for the necessities, he resented those that avoided them.

His first dreams were filled with emptiness.

They held another him trapped within an unforgiving world, and a cold and fearful reflection of him stood out in the darkness eyes piercing him.

He would wake from them angry.

No one could sooth him, except for her.

Her eyes would meet his and the fear would fade, and the anger would drift away.

She'd smile at him and then the anger faded and the emptiness no longer existed.

She was his and he was hers.

There was no room for emptiness, when their souls blended with one another.


	3. 3 Those Who Speak to Snakes

They brought hell upon the orphanage as soon as they could walk.

Snakes were attracted to them, they'd wrap their coils around the children's arms, legs and necks while the other children of the orphanage shrieked and ran.

Ms Cole watched them warily but whenever they were disciplined by being separated and put in isolation the two of them would always end up in each other's cells in the morning.

Ms Cole had sent for a priest when they turned 5 and their power seemed to emanate from them, and if wronged there would hell to be paid. Children would be found with their favorite books or rag dolls torn to pieces, if they so much as said a mean word to either child.

One instance, though, forever chilled the bones of all in the orphanage.

She didn't like him. Stubbs.

"Why don't you ever talk?"

"You are stupid aren't you?"

Her mismatched eyes turned downwards as she waited by the tree Tom and her would always meet by if they were seperated.

The man in black with the white collar had taken Tom in Ms Cole's office and still hadn't come out.

A sharp pain from her left caused Nova to tumble to the ground and skin her knees.

"Hey I was talking to you!"

She didn't even look at him, he wasn't worth her time. She was starting to get worried about Tom. The arm that shoved her, yanked her up from the ground.

"Are you deaf?"

"Get off." She whispered it and started to pull away. She needed to check on Tom, he'd been gone too long.

Stubbs grabbed at her again this time a fist of silver hair in his grasp.

"Hey freak…"

He stopped in mid sentence as he saw Nova glance up into the tree and smile.

Nefertari spun her body around the limb of the tree and stuck her head and hissed into Stubbs face giving him such a fright that he screamed and fell backwards.

_Nefertari, be careful. You don't want to get hurt.__Young one your mate is in trouble._

_Tom…_ Nova knew she shouldn't have left his side but he said to meet him at the tree.

Nova left the yard running to the backdoor of the orphanage, not even bothering to open the door it flew open as she approached it. She ran past the children playing in the parlour, past the children in the library having their lessons, past the matron who sat across from the door to her office and straight into the matron's office where Tom was all alone with the man.

"Get away from him now!"

The man was holding him down onto the chair, ropes were tied to him as the man in black muttered over him his neck extended towards Tom's face.

"Nova…" Tom whispered under his breath but did not open his eyes.

The man in black paused in his muttering to turn toward her, "Ah, this must be the other lost soul Ms Cole spoke about."

"I said get away from him!"

Ms. Cole came in and blocked Nova's view, "Nova, that is enough. It would be best for you to leave now."

"Have her stay, after all, what you told me she should be next." He smiled but it looked more like a grimacing snarl. Before he could move back to Tom, the little girl had jumped on his back and beat against his back.

"You will untie him now!"

Tom was scared, she could feel it in her heart now that she was in the room. Why had he blocked it from her?

She was thrown against the wall as the priest tried to pry her nails from around his neck, it hurt but she didn't let go.

This man was going to do something bad to Tom she had sensed it as soon as she came into the room, before Ms Cole had rushed in.

The smallest whimper escaped her throat from her aching back, and Tom's eyes flashed open his own growl responding back.

_What has he done to you?_

The priest winced from the hiss in his ear.

Ms. Cole in shock watched the scene unfold.

Tom's eyes were clouded like he was trying to wake from a dream.

"Tom!" Fear for him turned to anger, "What did you do to him!"

At this exclamation it was as if Ms Cole woke from her stupor and dragged the fighting Nova from the priest's back and peered at Tom with a furrowing gaze.

"Father… his eyes?" Ms Cole turned toward the priest.

He had straightened up and corrected his clothing, "Are you doubting me? Are you doubting the church?"

"No I just…"

Nova had had enough if no one would send the man away then she would do it.

From the top of her lungs she called to all their friends.

_Come, come, friends of the grass and the trees. Your speakers are in danger. Come to us. Nefertari, Seti, Alexander, come help us. _

"Dear Lord…" Ms Cole gasped dropping Nova to the ground as hissing filled the orphanage and not one or two snakes, slithered into the room toward the children in the center, but what seemed to be hundreds.

"We said get out and leave you disgusting thing!"

Nova shouted in the face of the priest and for the first time fear flitted across his face. "You dare to suggest you have power over us, dare to speak of doing what is right. Get out before we rain justice down upon your head!"

The priest ran from the orphanage not even bothering to grab his things.


	4. 4 Price of Magic

She was alone in a corner of the study room reading a book on myths.

Her lips twisting into a smile as she peered at pictures of fairies and the fae.

Her long lithe fingers hovering over the wings, a warm familiar feeling sweeping through her and the ripple in the air told her her energy within responded well to what she read.

"What are you reading?"

Nova lifted her head slightly and peered over the rim of the book, the girl who questioned her was new. She had been transferred from another orphanage. Hair plaited to each side and pink lips quirking with curiosity.

"It's about creatures of different realms."

"Like fairy tales?"

Nova tilted her head to the other side, "Not all tales are just stories."

"Like what?" She was young, her innocence shown from her pale amber eyes.

"Well...animals can talk to us."

"Really?"

"Yes but you have to listen very carefully and it depends on the animal as well."

"Can you talk to animals?"

"Yes."

The child was practically bouncing with joy. One of Nova's smiles, that had become rare since the day where snakes overran the school, appeared on her lips. Her joy almost seemed to make the air sparkle around her in the little girl's eyes.

"Are you a princess?"

Nova giggled, "I'm not sure."

The girl could not have been much younger than Nova, who was barely 6, but she seemed so youthful there were no frown lines along her eyes yet. She could tell that the girl had yet to be influenced by her peers to stay away from her. No doubt it would happen soon, but at the age of six Nova had learned to appreciate what she had in the moment.

\--

The little girl's name was Anne and she was a new bright light in the orphanage. Everyone, even Stubbs begrudgingly, would smile when she hopped down the stairs each morning.

Tom didn't like her. Everyone else did, but that never mattered to Tom. The girl had stolen Nova's smile away from him.

She spent more time with the young girl telling her stories from her dreams, their dreams. Those were their private things, they belonged to them only.

However his dislike turned to hate one specific day.

\--

Tom had been passing by the front door when he heard the whispers from the bottom stoop. He hid behind the door and leaned in to listen.

"You can really talk to snakes!"

A giggle came from Nova, "Shhh, it's a secret. I can talk to them and they talk back."

"I'll show you tomorrow morning, but you have to promise not to tell anyone else."

Tom's hands had turned into fists at his sides and he walked away knowing he would make sure that particular talent would not be shared.

\--

A scream broke up the chatter at the breakfast table that morning. Everyone froze, eyes wide, and watched as Tom walked into dining room a grin on his face.

Nova shot up from the table a horrible pang in her belly as she looked into the piercing gaze of her best friend. His eyes narrowed and he smirked.

She rushed from the table along with the matron and the other children to see Anne at the bottom of the stairs whimpering in pain her arm at an unnatural angle. She rushed to her little friend's side but before she could reach her Anne's eyes grew wide at her approach and screamed again this time with words.

"Don't touch me, don't touch me…" A whimper came from the girl as she crouched at the bottom of the stairs dragging her limp limb behind her as she scooted away.

"Witch!" Bill Stubbs pushed Nova away, "Bloody demon!"

\--

Nova didn't talk to Tom again for a week.

Until he blocked her way to dinner on the weekend, "Why so sad princess?"

His smirk mared his beautiful features, and Nova drew back from him not in fear but a feeling she'd never thought she'd feel for him. Disgust.

"Why?"

He just grinned at her with no response, she pushed past but he leaned into her ear instead.

"Don't you know, there's always a price for magic."


End file.
